In a dead reckoning system for wheeled applications, it is sometimes important to know the direction of travel as well as the displacement. The displacement is typically derived from the counting of odometer pulses by some means such as magnetic, optical, or direct connections to a vehicle's odometer sensors. For a wheeled application, the direction of travel is also typically very important. Generally, some other means is used to distinguish the direction of travel such as connections to a backup light signal, if one exists. In many applications, the installation of such an elaborate odometer sensor, including connections to a separate direction indicator is prohibitively expensive or not practical at all. Although systems that detect direction using magnetic sensors exist, they typically require two or more magnetic sensors to operate, such as a device described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,446,005 that uses two hall-effect magnetic sensors in a sensing component to detect direction.